% Body Fat in AGE groupTriathletes

Humberto Ardila

I have read that  male Elite Triathletes have a % body FAT in ranges from 6% to 12% , depending on their body characteristics , but what are the values for the Age Group  male triathletes that arrive in their upper 25% of their group  ? feel free to post here your values ( BMI, % Body Fat, Age )

I appreciate your comments.

I am training for an Ironman 70.3  and  I am 67 years old, with a weight of  77.1 kgs, a 23,6 BMI ...

Many thanks in advance ..

 

HarryD

Humberto, interesting topic. Sadly sports scientists very rarely study anyone over 40 years old so don't expect anything definitive from that direction



If you are in the healthy BMI range then the % of body fat wont really affect swim or bike performance. Excess weight will slow running though. Generally elite male athletes will get down to 6% for the big races but allow it to rise at other times. Long term lower than 10-12% is not good for anyone. Females will generally have higher numbers.



What is far more important is how much lean tissue you have, how much of it is muscle and how much power it can produce to propel you forward.



One way to find your optimum racing body fat is to gradually reduce it while maintaining muscle mass and monitor your running performance with say fortnightly repeatable Parkruns. Expect your run times to decrease as your body fat reduces but there will come a point where the performance improvement stop and actually reverse. Too lean is not good. That improvement plateau should be your optimum body fat level. Clearly this assumes you fat levels are high and it may be the case you need to put on a bit of weight.